You’ve done the hard work. You’ve thought of a great business idea, worked out the costs involved, and built a beautiful website. Everything looks to be in place – so what’s next?
Well, one thing new entrepreneurs often overlook is online sales. Having a powerful internet presence is crucial if you want to get your business off the ground, whether it be a digital product or a physical street store.
Fortunately, it’s a lot easier than it sounds: there are many techniques you can use to boost internet traffic in next to no time at all – but which ones are the most effective?
In this article, we’re going to take a look.
Sharpen your content marketing
While the name might sound trendy, it’s as old as the hills. Content marketing is simply using the right content to put your company in the best light.
To delve a little deeper, good content marketing has the power to grab a customer’s attention and convince them that your brand is exactly what they’ve been looking for.
The good news is that you can do a lot of this yourself. You’re the expert, after all; you know everything about your product – the key is letting your customers know. This can be in the form of a regular blog ( blog titles are very easy to come up with; there is even a title generator that can help you), a newsletter or, simply, powerful website content.
Once this is in place, you should find it much easier to generate leads. It’s also a great way to network, as more people will see your work and possibly offer to work with you, or even invest in you.
That said, sometimes you’ll hit a buffer and have to hire a professional copywriter.
While the top ones charge a lot, there are several great websites that can help you out: Upwork and Guru, to name a couple. Just be sure to check their previous experience and references, like you would with any other employee or contractor.
Give away freebies
There’s nothing quite like getting something for free; it’s human nature to feel a small thrill each time it happens.
Successful businesses know this, which is why you’ll often see online promotions giving away samples of products to hook customers onto their brand.
While it might be different if you’re just starting out, take a look at what your business could do: there are literally hundreds of marketing ideas to help get you on your way.
If you’re selling a digital product then it’s a common practice to offer free trials to customers so they get used to using it. Sports clubs offer trial memberships to show off their facilities, online casinos offer no deposit bonuses to get people to sign up, while retailers still love to put the classic Buy One Get One Free offer on their websites.
Sometimes, even just acquiring customers’ contact information is useful, which some businesses do by offering something for free, like an ebook, in return. They can then contact the customer with special offers in the future.
The initial outlay for these methods might hurt at first, but the customer loyalty it can create will pay it back many times over. Speculate to accumulate!
Give them a solid money-back guarantee
Often, the last thing a customer will do before clicking that buy icon is check out what protection they’ll have, in case they’re not satisfied.
It’s one area that many companies lose sales in, as they often overlook it or don’t consider it important. This hits customer confidence – but it’s all so very avoidable.
Make sure you offer them a watertight money-back guarantee, or warranty, to cover any potential problems. The likelihood of the customer not being happy is very low if you do your job right, so hopefully they won’t have to use it anyway.
Having this low-risk option in place not only helps you to procure one-off sales but also increases customer loyalty as they’ll now consider you to be a trusted seller. Nice, eh?
Subscribe them up
So, you’ve got your customer; they were blown away by your razor-sharp content marketing, fabulous free item and wonderful money-back guarantee; they’ve made a purchase and are happy with it.
But how do you get them to come back? After all, it’s not set in stone that they will.
One of the most effective ways is offering a subscription. With this, you’ll be assured of repeat sales as the customer will pay an amount each week, month, or year, and, crucially, this helps to stave off competition from rivals. You’ll also be able to predict future revenue to budget more effectively.
There’s something in it for the customer as well, of course. They’ll be getting your wonderful product or service at a discount as a thanks for their loyalty. It’s also convenient for them – they don’t have to spend time searching for options anymore, they have you!
Of course, it doesn’t make sense to base your entire sales model on subscriptions, but as an option available to all customers it makes your business look more flexible, as well as adding another income stream.
Keep your eyes and ears open
Feedback is a superb measure of how well you’re doing.
Speak to your online customers after the sale, give them a quick survey to fill out, and, most importantly, listen to them. Then, adjust your product or service if they point out any weaknesses.
Remember, we’re always learning, and the more you know the more you can use that knowledge to build your business.
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